Baja Beach Fest Announces Cardi B, Ozuna and J Balvin for Second Year

Festival organizers talk expanding in year two and Bad Bunny requesting to return.

Baja Beach Festival in Rosarito Beach, Baja California has announced Cardi B, Ozuna, J Balvin and the return of Bad Bunny for its second annual year. For its sophomore year, the reggaetón/trap festival will expand to two days on the beach from Aug. 16-17 in Mexico.

The festival will boast performances from Brytiago, Amenazzy, Alex Rose, De La Ghetto, Cazzu and more after its successful launch in 2018 by co-founders Aaron Ampudia and Chris Den Uijl who also put on several events a year at the famous Papa’s and Beers in Rosarito Beach.

"When we did the festival [in 2018], we had 5,000 people trying to get in who didn’t have tickets but just assumed they could get them at the door," says Den Uijl, adding we realized "we could definitely do two days next year and expand the grounds. So we are going from 15,000 attendees to 30,000 a day."

Having done mainly indoor hip-hop shows in the Baja market, the organizers decided to put a single-day festival on the sand in Rosarito and hosted the first Baja Beach Fest with Bad Bunny, who organizers say requested to return for year two.

“Working on tons of electronic and multi-genre festivals, I felt like there was a really big void, the underserved market being the Latino American population,” Den Uijl tells Billboard. “We didn’t want to exploit the reggaetón Latin world by integrating a bunch of multi-genre. We really wanted to create a place for them to call their home. Our idea of doing it on the white sand beaches of Rosarito mimics a lot of the Caribbean Latin culture where this music really comes from.”

The co-founders explained that Cardi B’s performance will have a "Latin integration" while Bad Bunny will return for the second time.

"We didn’t have the intention of rebooking anyone from year one at first. When we found out how much Bad Bunny loved the festival, and wanted to return, we made it a mission to have him be apart of this year's festival. We were excited to put the biggest names together for one year," says Den Uijl.

Prior to announcing the lineup, Baja Beach Fest did a blind presale, selling out its allotment of VIP packages in 20 minutes and blasting through their two-day general admission passes in a matter of hours.

"They trust what we built and they know it is going to be something big and unique," Ampudiav says of the demand.

"I’ve never seen such an engaged audience and so much positivity from a first-year event specifically," adds Den Uijl.

Following the sold-out presale, general admission and VIP tickets are currently on-sale at BajaBeachFest.com.